This area upon the summit, and also the approaches
at the western end, were covered with the most grand, imposing, and
costly architectural structures that then existed in the whole European
world. There were temples, colonnades, gateways, stairways, porticoes,
towers, and walls, which, viewed as a whole, presented a most
magnificent spectacle, that excited universal admiration, and which,
when examined in detail, awakened a greater degree of wonder still by
the costliness of the materials, the beauty and perfection of the
workmanship, and the richness and profusion of the decorations, which
were seen on every hand. The number and variety of statues of bronze and
of marble which had been erected in the various temples and upon the
different platforms were very great. There was one, a statue of Minerva,
which was executed by Phidias, the great Athenian sculptor, after the
celebrated battle of Marathon, in the days of Darius, which, with its
pedestal, was sixty feet high. It stood on the left of the grand
entrance, towering above the buildings in full view from the country
below, and leaning upon its long spear like a colossal sentinel on
guard. In the distance, on the right, from the same point of view, the
great temple called the Parthenon was to be seen, a temple which was, in
some respects, the most celebrated in the world. The ruins of these
edifices remain to the present day, standing in desolate and solitary
grandeur on the rocky hill which they once so richly adorned.

When Xerxes arrived at Athens, he found, of course, no difficulty in
obtaining possession of the city itself, since it had been deserted by
its inhabitants, and left defenseless. The people that remained had all
crowded into the citadel. They had built the wooden palisade across the
only approach by which it was possible to get near the gates, and they
had collected large stones on the tops of the rocks, to roll down upon
their assailants if they should attempt to ascend.

[Illustration: THE CITADEL AT ATHENS.]

Xerxes, after ravaging and burning the town, took up a position upon a
hill opposite to the citadel, and there he had engines constructed to
throw enormous arrows, on which tow that had been dipped in pitch was
wound. This combustible envelopment of the arrows was set on fire before
the weapon was discharged, and a shower of the burning missiles thus
formed was directed toward the palisade. The wooden walls were soon set
on fire by them, a